Chapter 12: Black Boots

I fumble the basketball, my hands unable to coordinate with my feet even though I'm giving it my all. Betsy Bearston shoulder checks me and takes it away, running off like a gazelle toward the basket. Her delicate hooves make tiny tapping sounds, her long, arched neck showing off perky ears while her front legs leap upward, tossing the ball with a grace I can only dream of. When her hooves hit the ground, she's a girl again and everyone cheers, including me.

The shoulder of my t-shirt is already wet from wiping at the sweat on my face and I grimace a bit at the grossness of the whole process. I much prefer the more sterile and comfortable environment of a traditional classroom to running around in sneakers and shorts trying to master sports that elude my meager skills. Clare and Calvin are the athletes in our family-soccer stars-and I'm okay with that.

Mr. Shute, our gym teacher, blows his whistle and points at the doors at the far end of the room. The sound echoes uncomfortably in the stale air, the squeak of rubber on plastic floor jarring and giving me a bit of a headache.

"Hit the showers."

I still feel bad for showing up late and show my appreciation to Mr. Shute by staying behind to gather up the basketballs and pylons, stacking them neatly in the equipment room while he trudges off to his office. Funny how he didn't reprimand me for being tardy. I'm just grateful he was kind enough to let me have a pass. I'm about to wave and smile at him when he slams his door shut, rattling the glass.

Hmmm. I guess he has something important to take care of. I'll thank him later.

Gym class has had one big benefit. I seem to have sweated out most of my hurt from earlier. There's a bounce back in my step when I enter the locker room, smile returned. One class to go, then home. I wonder what chemistry will be like? Maybe Ms. Richard will let me do some experiments this year.

I pull my locker door open and retrieve my gym bag, but it takes me a moment to realize my boots are missing. Huh. They were here when class started, I locked them up inside personally. Maybe I have the wrong locker? But, no, all of my other stuff is here, safe and sound.

Where are my boots?

A frantic ticking sounds off in my head as I check the lockers beside me, gaping open. No boots. Not under the bench behind me or tucked away beneath the sinks in the shower area. When I finally finish my search, I don't have time to shower and I don't have my boots.

My eyes sting, throat tightening as I pull on my striped socks over my pale pink leggings and stare at my sneakers. I don't have anything else to wear. Guess I'll have to check in at the office and see if someone turned in my boots. They must have thought they were lost or something.

A faint hiccup builds in the back of my throat when I exit the locker room and head for my last class. It's just not the same without my stomping boots.

Chemistry drags by while Ms. Richard talks endlessly about what she has in store for us this year. I like her well enough, but she enjoys the sound of her own voice a little too much. By the time class wraps up, we've done nothing but listen to her talk.

So much for experiments. Not like I'm in the mood now, anyway. I hurry to the office, pushing past a few other students and try to smile at Miss Nigel, the receptionist. She looks down her narrow nose at me, sour as usual. I know it's not very nice to think of her that way, but she's such a grump, always has been and I just can't muster the energy to think otherwise.

"Has anyone turned in a pair of black boots?" They must be here. I peek over her shoulder at the big cardboard box behind the desk, the lost and found. My heart pounds faster as she sniffs, shakes her head, her thin, brown hair bravely holding a bare curl at the very bottom, already stringy as though she has an excessive oil problem. I've tried to offer her hair advice in the past, but she's never taken it, obviously.

"No," she says, looking past me, the whiskered snout of a shrew twitching, tiny pink nose quivering over sharp fangs that protrude from her pale brown muzzle. "Next."

I fight the urge to cry. No? She didn't even check. "Are you sure? Can you check again?" They have to be here. Where else could they be?

Miss Nigel's furry face curls into a snarl, her beady black eyes glittering, giant pink ears flickering back before she's just a nasty young woman again.

"I said no. Now, if you don't mind, there are others you've butted in front of, Kit MacLean. The world does not revolve around you, despite what you might believe. Or your ridiculous boots."

Someone laughs behind me, but it doesn't matter. My boots aren't here.

And they aren't ridiculous, thank you very much.

She won't be further help, it seems. I retreat, heading for my locker. I don't want to miss the bus for a second time. I'm already running behind and will have to hurry. At least I have my sneakers on, right? Silver linings. They will make me faster. But, it's just not the same.

Something white flaps on the surface of my locker and, as I come to a halt and stare at it, I feel warmth spread through my chest. A missing poster! My boots! Someone has posted it for me. I pull it down and hug it to me. I'll have to find whoever it is and thank them for being so kind. My gaze scans it as I open my locker door with absent glances at my lock and spot a link at the bottom of the page. Maybe my mystery benefactor has their own website and is doing a lost and found there? My phone beeps as I turn it on and quickly type in the address.

The screen darkens, then flickers to a photo. My boots! It's my boots, in my gym locker. Have they been returned? Then, the slideshow begins and my entire world clenches into sharp focus.

Image after image, just my boots. Being photographed as they leave my locker, down the hall outside the gym to the parking lot. Where they slowly disintegrate through each picture as though decaying on their own. Sliced open, driven over by a car and, finally, set on fire on a grassy spot I don't recognize.

Something wet drips onto the screen of my phone and, with a start of surprise, I wipe it away, noticing then the wavering difficulty I'm having seeing clearly. My jacket sleeve is damp when I'm done wiping at the tears on my face.

I can't muster a single thing, not more tears, not a scream, not anger or anything.

My boots. Who would do this to my boots?

My phone pings. I click the message button automatically, without thinking. And read the text in all caps glaring back at me.

YOU WERE WARNED.

I almost drop my phone as I think of Tate and Donnelly and, to my utter shock, Tom Brown. The fake shot he took at me, the finger gun. He's a computer guy, right? He would be capable of building a website and putting the slide show together.

No, I won't think badly of a fellow student, not when I don't have proof of wrongdoing. And he has no reason to hate me, or do such horrible things to my poor, poor boots. And yet, as I stare at them, at the devastation that was polished black leather and lovingly shined silver buckles, my heart clenches.

It's him, I know it. He's clearly lost his mind, doing something like this. Just in case he missed it, ruining my things won't endear him to me. There goes his chance of ever having his crush realized.

Wait. What if he doesn't like me after all? Then why trail after me all these years? And, what in the world does he have to do with Donnelly bullying Tate?

It doesn't matter, I realize, as something I've never felt before bursts in my stomach, swelling with fire through my entire being, sending tingling prickles through every cell in my body as the final image comes to a halt and stays there. Ashes with blackened buckles poking through. All that's left of my darling boots.

Rage. Utter rage. I'm about to tear someone apart. And his name is Tom Brown.

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